Coal = Cola?

For a project for school today, Nicole had to find as many things as she could from around our house that were on a list of items made from the by-products of using coal. We learned that when they burn coal to generate electricity, the leftover "stuff" is used for many other useful items we use every day.

For instance, we learned that both laughing gas & the carbon dioxide used for soda can come from coal by-products, as well as asparatame (the artificial sweetener).

Here is everything we found around our house, except for cement, shingles, and insulation which are also by-products of coal usage, but they would not fit on our countertop.

What did fit on our counter from the list:

Posterboard
Fertilizer
Moth Balls
Bug Spray
Abrasives
Pens
Baking Powder
Perfumes
Plastics
Paint
Rubber Bands
Rubber Cement
Batteries
Paper Clips
Chalk